CONFERENCE CIRCUIT
ACRL in Anaheim: ACRL programs at the ALA Annual Conference
C&RL News, September 2008
Vol. 69, No. 8
ALA’s 127th Annual Conference was held June 26–July 2, 2008, in Anaheim, California. Approximately 22,047 librarians, library support staff, exhibitors, writers, educators, publishers, and special guests added the conference. Ed. note: Thanks to the ACRL members who summarized programs to make this report possible.
Predictably irrational
We are not as rational as we tend to assume we are. Early in his talk, Dan Ariely projected Roger Shepard’s optical illusion “Turning the Tables.” Several visual cues in the image lead viewers to quickly conclude that one of the tables presented is longer than the other. The surprising, and measurable, truth is that the tables are the same length. Just as optical illusions such as Shepard’s highlight predictable mistakes hardwired into our visual system, Ariely’s work in behavioral economics highlights mistakes we make with similarly consistency when it comes to rational decisions.
Ariely regaled the audience at the ACRL President’s Program, “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions,” with an hour of delightful illustrations of these reasoning glitches, revealing their predictability and suggesting the principles behind some of them. Chief among these principles is that we do not have an internalized objective scale for most choices: we choose options based on their value relative to the other options presented. People’s responses can be strongly influenced by whether a question is phrased with an opt-in or opt-out default, whether or not the offer of something “free” is involved in a choice, or the number of options presented. For example, people proved ten times more likely to buy an unusual jam flavor from a display of six jams than from a display of 24 jams; 24 is too many to compare. Similarly, if two relatively equivalent options are made available, the propensity to choose one over the other will dramatically increase if a slightly defective version of that one (a “decoy,” in marketing terms) is added to the list of options (our comparison of the two initial options is unbalanced by the weight of the decoy). The lesson: we do not know our own preferences in every context, and decisions we make are often influenced by forces we fail to consider. For illustrations of these forces at work (and how to contend with them), see Ariely’s best-selling book Predictably Irrational.
After his talk, the audience and a panel of librarians had the opportunity to discuss with Ariely some of the implications of his theories and findings for libraries. Panelists sought his advice on how libraries can better communicate and leverage the quality and value libraries possess to the communities they serve.
In response, Ariely described the notion that products or services of “unknown value” do not result in regret if the user does not take advantage of them. He posed the question, “What is the quality of something we don’t pay for?” In response, panelists wondered if librarians should explicitly inform their users they indeed are paying for library resources (via tuition, taxes, etc.) as one means of beginning to communicate their worth. Ariely indicated doing so would be a start because emphasizing the real costs of products or services results in feelings of regret if one has not made use of them.
One panelist noted librarians may also create Ariely’s notion of the “optimal hard decision scenario” by offering users too many information resources, leaving them feeling overwhelmed and unlikely to use library resources at all. When asked how librarians could learn about our own decision processes in order to help users identify their own, Ariely suggested being open to and conducting simple experiments to begin identifying user preferences in various situations and developing solutions in response.
Ariely also made suggestions for conveying the value of libraries outside of the traditionally collected statistics. First, he recommended coming up with other forms of “value” and changing the role of the library. For example, experts tend to create knowledge that is not easily digested by laypersons, so perhaps a value libraries could add would be to “repackage” this knowledge into more accessible and usable forms. He continued to propose that academic libraries should play a larger role in the intellectual life of a university and should think about and prepare staff for what a good library of the future will be.
When asked, Ariely indicated supervisory staff could instill purpose and meaning in employees’ work without financial benefits by offering transparency of process, planning, and intent. Offering employees a say in things can replace their external motives (i.e., a paycheck) with internal motives (i.e., desire to assist in planning a program for library users), while affirming their roles within the organization.
On the larger question of whether libraries in higher education in the United States today should increase spending or advocate for changing the social norm, Ariely responded by describing how he feels the No Child Left Behind Act has decreased the desire to learn. Government funding is not a proper incentive for motivating learning, since it demonstrably results in organizations developing workarounds to alter their data and receive the funding anyhow. Replacing internal motives (desire to learn) with external motives (government funding) is not a good model for improving higher education, either.—Leslie Bussert and Danielle Rowland, University of Washington-Bothell/Cascadia Community College, lbussert@uwb.edu and drowland@uwb.edu
Global scholarly communication
More than 70 people attended the 2008 AAMES annual program, entitled “Global Scholarly Communication: International Access and Accessibility.” One moderator, five speakers, and two reactors formed the panel and discussed the issues, challenges, and solutions librarians encounter and seek in assisting scholarly research in an environment that is becoming more interdependent and global in outlook.
The general moderator, Jim Cogswell (University of Missouri), pointed out in his introduction that scholarly research is increasingly becoming global with Internet connectivity and growing interdisciplinarity. It is obvious now that academic research and global communication mutually affect and reinforce each other.
In her presentation, titled “Overview of Global Scholarly Communication Issues,” Ann Okerson (Yale University) considered some of the influences that impact the libraries of the 21st century and scholarly communication, such as the transforming information economy in global settings that is creating a new generation of technology-savvy audiences, and the evolving global economy that is closely related to information-economy fueled innovation and prompts libraries to rethink their business plans and revenue streams.
Okerson emphasized that technology gadgets are creating a large audience for the next information revolution. “Librarians need to think about how to reach marginalized and under-supported populations around the world, people with perhaps no fixed address, or people unable to leave their residence or fishing boat or market stall to find a building with computers and network connections.” Okerson went on to offer examples of librarianship on a global, partnered scale at Yale, such as Project OACIS (Online Access to Consolidated Information on Serials), which has created a multipartnered union list of Middle Eastern serials from a diverse set of institutions in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, and Project AMEEL (A Middle Eastern Electronic Library), which is in partnership with several universities, global publishers, and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s visionary creation on the site of the ancient library).
The second presentation, titled “Two-Way Scholarly Communication between the United States and China,” by Hong Cheng (UCLA), raised interesting questions: How does global scholarly communication affect our services in academic libraries, and how do we respond to it? In an attempt to answer these questions, Cheng presented the results of a survey conducted among Chinese and American scholars. His presentation covered several interesting points: 1) Global scholarly communication is transforming from one-way to two-way, and even to multidirectional traffic. Researchers in all international study fields are becoming more dependent than ever on global scholarly communication. 2) International studies scholars in the United States and China widely accept some new concepts of global scholarly communication, such as international publishing, borderless service, and cyberianship. Scholars support the concept of open access, a key element of scholarly communication, as well. However, there are a few concerns over the actual practice, such as tenure/promotion in faculty status and the role of professional associations, which are the main issues librarians have to consider in promoting global scholarly communication.
Cheng’s surveys and interviews revealed that the Internet and related information technology allow scholars in international studies to share many common thoughts; however, notable differences still exist. It seems that Chinese researchers are more in favor of global scholarly communication than American scholars; on the other hand, American librarians are aware of global scholarly communication more than Chinese counterparts. To explain such a phenomenon, different social and cultural environments might be a key factor.
Deepa Banerjee (University of Washington) presented on “Scholarly Communication and International Access in India and South Asia.” She noted that there has been an explosion of scholarly output by the researchers and scholars around the world. The developing nations, including South Asia, are faced with constant challenges to provide access to the global scholarly literature due to the digital divide within their own countries and communities and the scarcity of resources. Libraries in South Asia are constantly faced with the issue of shrinking budgets.
Some of the current challenges and new initiatives in South Asia regarding accessibility to international scholarly literature are:
• The changing nature of global scholarly communication.
• Current challenges in providing access to global scholarly literature in South Asia.
• Current major initiatives in South Asia to enhance access to global scholarly literature.
• Ongoing major research and digital projects in South Asia, which will significantly impact global scholarship and communication.
Eunkyung Kwon (Daegu University, Korea) gave a presentation entitled “Scholarly Communication and International Access in Korea.” In her presentation, she offered examples from the projects of the National Library of Korea and other major libraries that are engaged in facilitating global scholarly communication and the challenges that have confronted them, such as budgetary constraints and limited outreach mechanisms.
Elizabeth Kiondo (associate professor, UNESCO National Commission, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) spoke on “Scholarly Communication and International Access in Sub-Saharan Africa.” In addition to offering examples of the scholarly communication projects that libraries in Tanzania are currently involved in, Kiondo also raised similar issues as those mentioned in Kwon’s and Banerjee’s presentations.
The first reactor was Joy Kim (Korean Heritage Library, University of Southern California). Her response to the presentations was entitled “Comments on Dr. Eunkyung Kwon’s Presentation Impact of Scholarly Communication in Korea on Korean Studies in North America.” Kim focused on how these recent developments in Korea have affected Korean Studies scholars and librarians in North America. Recognizing the importance of information in the knowledge-based economy, the Korean government coined the term informatization (meaning the process of creating an advanced information society) and adopted it as a core strategy in its effort to emerge from its troubled economy.
Kim made an interesting point that librarians are “in the business of match making, connecting information to people. The collections and metadata that we create will remain and touch the lives of many generations around the globe.”
Anchi Hoh (Library of Congress) was the second reactor. She commented that libraries and librarians around the world seem to face the common issues and challenges, i.e., the “digital divide,” budget constraints, lack of policies on equal participation as producers and users of knowledge, social/cultural differences, etc. At the same time, similar strategies seem to have been sought, such as creating more open access sources, conducting more digitization projects, and forming alliances with libraries in other parts of the world. Some of the challenges mentioned in these presentations seem to be strongly associated with socio-cultural and/or economic conditions of a society.
For instance, the gap of understanding and the use of global scholarly communication between Chinese and the American scholars lies largely in the language barrier. More Chinese scholars can use English sources, whereas fewer English-speaking scholars can use resources in Chinese. These types of factors are probably beyond the control of libraries. However, by focusing on technical advancement and raising people’s awareness of the importance and trends of global scholarly communication, librarians are committed to providing more resources via new technologies in order to improve global access to information.
The entire session ended with a very good discussion between the speakers and the audience. Program attendees became more aware of this subject and the issues surrounding it. Some of the presentations may be accessible at www.acrl.org/ala/acrl/acrlevents/acrlatannual.cfm.—Anchi Hoh, Library of Congress, adia@loc.gov
African Americans in Hollywood
The African American Studies Librarians Section (AFAS) sponsored a session titled “African Americans in Hollywood: Images, Performers, Films, Filmmakers, from 1903 to the Present,” a lecture and presentation by noted film historian, author, and scholar Donald Bogle. Cosponsors for the session were ProQuest and Oxford University Press, publisher of the African American National Biography.
Carmelita Pickett (AFAS chair) thanked the standing-room-only audience of 224 attendees for coming out for the program and then turned over the introduction of the speaker to Myrtis Cochran (AFAS Program Planning Committee member). (AFAS Program Planning Committee Chair Lisa Pillow was unable to attend.) Cochran’s introduction noted that Bogle is considered the foremost authority on African Americans in film, teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, is the creator of a four-part PBS series titled “Brown Sugar: Eighty Years of America’s Black Female Superstars,” and is the author of several books, including the focus of his presentation Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films.
Taking a cue from the title, Bogle began by providing a chronology of African American performers and performances in Hollywood films, from the “race movies” of the early 1900s to the present day state of African Americans in the motion picture industry. He spoke about the often unflattering and dehumanizing stereotypical characters African Americans were forced to portray in early Hollywood films and the classic “Uncle Tom,” who was often portrayed by whites in blackface or the “coon” figure who became the comic, dancing, prancing African American man as manifested in the Steppin Fetchit character. Despite this insistence of the film industry to present African American life as unsavory and salacious, the “tragic mulatto,” the long-suffering “mammy” or the oversexed “buck,” many actors were able to transcend these characterizations, offering Oscar-worthy performances. Bogle showed how these very same characters and characterizations have permeated the performances of present day African American actors.
In concluding, Bogle noted that some great changes have occurred since the early film years of African American performances, but, unfortunately, the stereotypes have nevertheless endured.—Rebecca Hankins, Texas A&M University, rhankins@lib-gv.tamu.edu
Only a fairly tale?
The Anthropology and Sociology Section (ANSS) program, “The Lady, the Tramp and the Lion King: Mixed Messages about Gender, Race and Ethnicity in Disney’s Magic Kingdom,” featured four Disney scholars who each spoke about their research on representations of race and gender in Disney media its effect on popular culture.
Patricia Little (California State University-San Bernardino) gave an overview of the ubiquity of Disney in current American culture. Research is clear that media effects children’s behavior and with the advent of technology such as DVD players, children can press play again and again, exposing them to substantially more Disney media than in previous generations. While many of the values expressed in Disney films are positive (follow your dreams, stand up for what you believe is right, etc.), Little argued that there are many less positive and less obvious subtexts expressed through means such as depicting women as mostly concerned with their looks and getting married, and racial coding in accents.
Keith Harris (University of California-Riverside) analyzed a television program that was very different from the rest of the Disney corpus. Gargoyles, which ran as part of the Disney Afternoon block from 1994-1997, was targeted to an older demographic and its darker themes were heavily influenced by mythology and Shakespeare. In the series, New York is depicted as a racially diverse utopia and both genders operate on equal planes. Harris argued that while Disney’s multicultural vision was groundbreaking and valid, it was also unfortunately premature and the series fell apart after a couple seasons.
Claudine Michel (University of California-Santa Barbara) discussed some of the darker aspects of Disney history. According to Michel, hidden underneath the glowing image of “Uncle Walt” is the real Walt Disney who was anti-semite, anti-union and a FBI informant. She stated that Disney’s world is indeed very small and reality has been intentionally removed from Disneyland and replaced with cultural imperialism disguised as children’s entertainment.
The final speaker, Betsy Hearne (University of Illinois) advocated not censoring Disney’s work, but offering alternatives to our children. We are slowly losing the vast panorama of ethnic folklore due to the domination of the “Disney Version.” Alternative versions of many folktales, such as Cinderella, which has appeared in various guises in many cultures for thousands of years, are being displaced by the Disney Cinderella. She concluded by encouraging us to subvert the Disney version by grabbing any child we could and reading non-Disney versions of folktales to them. After all, she said, “We are librarians; we are missionaries of knowledge.”
More information about the program and the speakers can be found at anssdisney08.wordpress.com.—Anne-Marie Davis, University of Washington, adavey@u.washington.edu
Learning virtually
Three sections of ACRL combined forces to present a timely program on ways to create engaging online training/learning opportunities for library staff, while dealing with constrained or decreasing training budgets. Instead of a “talking heads” panel discussion, four speakers (Dan Balzer, BP Corporate Training; Elaine Fabbro, Athabasca University; Jonathan Finkelstein, Learning Times; and Jon Stahler, ACRL) interacted with the members of the on-site audience, as well as the virtual participants who joined the program via Learning Times. They shared ways to plan for and prioritize needs for professional development using free and low-cost tools and discussed possible future trends in online learning.
Modeling the “learning virtually” theme of the program, the program was Webcast simultaneously via the Learning Times Web site and is archived at www.learningtimes.org. Other program materials are available atwikis.ala.org/acrl/index.php/Joint-CJCLS-CLS-DLS-Program.
One virtual participant, a librarian working with 100 teaching librarians in the Middle East, e-mailed the speakers the following day to say that this session was “by far one of the most intriguing sessions at ALA.”
A poster session followed the main session. Twelve presenters showed examples of using Web-based training for library staff. The wiki link above also includes the list of poster sessions and presenters.—David A. Wright (panel moderator and chair, Program Planning Committee), Surry Community College, wrightd@surry.edu
Media literacy, artistic expression, and copyright
The ACRL Copyright Committee program, “Media Literacy, Artistic Expression, and Copyright,” drew an audience of 175 persons. Committee chair Becky Albitz (Pennsylvania Sate University) opened the program and program organizer Leslie Milner (Northeastern University) introduced the speakers.
Renee Hobbs (founder of the Media Education Lab at Temple University) defined media literacy as an expanded conceptualization of literacy to embrace a wide variety of forms of expression. Literacy involves “Sharing meaning through symbolic forms,” and has both receptive and productive aspects. To develop the latter, students must be able to compose messages drawing in part upon existing information that may be copyrighted. Promotion of belief that sharing always equals stealing, relying on fair use is too risky, and respect for authors means always getting permission, has increased “copyright confusion” among users. This creates less effective teaching, distribution hurdles, and the perpetuation of misinformation.
Marybeth Peters (director of the U.S. Copyright Office) stated that, “Copyright law reflects the social and moral values of a country.” Copyright rejects patronage as an incentive for the creation of new knowledge in favor of exclusive author rights in a marketplace. Copyright also limits the rights of authors to prevent the stifling of subsequent work. She reiterated the idea of balance, but said that, “There are many ideas of appropriate balance. Over time, what appears to be balance will change.”
Mary Rasenberger (attorney and former senior policy advisor at the Library of Congress) compared the revolutionary potential of the invention of the printing press to recent technological developments in media production. While the former made it possible for everyone to become a reader, the latter has made it possible for everyone to become an author. The creative acts made possible by media technologies were not envisioned in the Copyright Law of 1976. The unmet challenge is to change copyright law to meet societal needs to use copyrighted material, but without destroying incentives for authors.—Frank Gavett, Colgate University, fgavett@mail.colgate.edu
Knowledge wants to be known
The Education and Behavioral Sciences Section (EBSS), along with the Science and Technology Section (STS) and the ACRL Scholarly Communication Committee, sponsored an inspiring and multifaceted look at open access issues in the social sciences. The moderator for the session was Kate Corby (Michigan State University, cochair of the 2008 EBSS Program Planning Committee).
John Willinsky (Stanford University) opened the session with a dynamic call to action for librarians, framing the open access movement as a “human right to know.” He described key events in the open access movement, including Harvard’s open access directive and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (plato.stanford.edu/), a scholarly project funded not only by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation, but also by many university libraries. Willinsky discussed the Public Knowledge Project (pkp.sfu.ca/), a collaborative, grant-funded effort by the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, the Simon Fraser University Library, the School of Education at Stanford University, and the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing at Simon Fraser University.
PKP is “a research and development initiative directed toward improving the scholarly and public quality of academic research through the development of innovative online publishing and knowledge-sharing environments.”
Willinsky also announced that the Stanford School of Education had recently voted to require faculty to allow the university to deposit their publications in an open access database. In closing, Willinsky acknowledged the challenges to open access, while charging the members of the audience to advocate and fight for open access for the good of humanity and to enrich their relationships with their communities.
Alison Mudditt (executive vice president of the Higher Education Group at SAGE) provided fascinating insight into the publisher perspective. Mudditt discussed how SAGE is contributing to the open access movement, through its partnership with open access publisher Hindawi (www.sage-hindawi.com), its engagement in the open access debate, and its enhanced author license. Mudditt presented thought-provoking information about the differences between science, technology and medicine (STM) fields and social science disciplines, including differences in
federal funding levels and citation patterns. She framed concerns about open access from the publisher perspective.
While the primary objective of a publisher is to disseminate research, scholarly associations and small publishers in particular need journal revenues to support other activities. Publishers acknowledge the advantages of open access, they are concerned with questions of how research is vetted in the open access environment, and how information could potentially be misused. Cost is also a concern, since publishers do pay for systems to support the peer review process, editing, production, archiving, and global dissemination. Mudditt concluded with the hope that all parties involved in the discussion would move into a pluralistic phase, trying many different models and taking into account the needs of all stakeholders.
The final speaker was open access advocate Ray English (Oberlin College, current chair of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition [SPARC] Steering Committee). English spoke about open access strategies for libraries, including creating open access journals and encouraging faculty to deposit their work in either institutional repositories or disciplinary repositories, or both. English spoke of the need for campus education about author rights, including the SPARC Author Addendum (www.arl.org/sparc/author/addendum.shtml) and the value of open archiving, citing the slow pace of adoption on the part of faculty to deposit their work in any type of repository. He outlined possible future research options for librarians, such as the distribution of open archiving across all disciplines, including the social sciences.
—Stephanie Davis-Kahl, Illinois Wesleyan University, sdaviska@iwu.edu
The right to information literacy in the Information Age
The topic “Is There a Right to Information Literacy? Academy Responsibility in the Information Age” attracted a large crowd of approximately 250 people to the Committee on Ethics program (cosponsored by the Instruction Section). Catherine Haras (California State University-Los Angeles, 2008 Ethics Committee Program chair) provided the audience with a bibliography of selected readings on the topic and introduced the distinguished speakers.
Patricia Stanley (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education) focused on information literacy as a policy issue. Although information literacy is not mentioned as such in government policy, it is reflected in many educational concepts, such as lifelong learning and critical thinking. Professional development for educators, either pre-service or in-service, can be a mechanism for preparing faculty to partner with librarians to teach information literacy skills. However, Stanley suggested that there needs to be better definition and understanding of information literacy before it will become part of policy at the governmental level. Information literacy is critical to student success. Education, especially higher education, in the U.S. has to change for the nation to remain competitive in the world economy.
Lori Roth (California State University) began her presentation with the question of who is responsible for information literacy. She asserted that librarians, teaching faculty, and college administrators all have an important role to play in ensuring students leave our institutions as information literate graduates. To the question of how to move information literacy into policy, Roth suggested we need a controversial “exposé” similar to the article “Why Johnny Can’t Write” that appeared in Newsweek in December 1975.
Penny Beile (University of Central Florida Libraries) stated that information literacy relates to the purpose of higher education as a foundational skill that supports key outcomes of critical thinking, scholarship, and intellectual integrity. Beile referred to the UNESCO conceptual framework paper “Towards Information Literacy Indicators” by Ralph Catts and Jesus Lau, where responsibility for information literacy is assigned to “librarians and other educators.” She suggested that librarians must offer evidence for the value of information literacy to student learning.
Stephanie Sterling Brasley (California State University) titled her presentation “Dream Deferred to Dream Realized.” She began by saying that information literacy is a “right” as with other human rights, but later asked why has this concept failed to take hold beyond school and academic libraries. Brasley proposed several reasons: information literacy is seen as a “library thing,” faculty see discipline content as more important, lack of pedagogical preparation of librarians and mistaken notions of what information literacy is and is not. How we frame the conversation is important. There has not been a paradigm shift from bibliographic instruction to information fluency. Brasley urged librarians to avoid library jargon and instead use the language of the campus. She described the California experience where in spite of the state being a leader in information literacy/ information fluency initiatives, the dream is yet to be realized. She closed on a note of optimism, but encouraged librarians to partner with faculty to bring information literacy education to students.—Jeanne L. Pfander, University of Arizona Libraries, pfanderj@u.library.arizona.edu
Librarians as teachers
The Instruction Section’s (IS) Conference Program Planning Committee invited Jeffrey Liles to present for the annual program, “Creating Change: Teacher Librarians and New Learners.” Liles is professor of education at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, and former coordinator of library instruction at the State University of New York at Geneseo’s Milne Library.
The program focused on learning theories and ways that teacher-librarians can best prepare for their interaction with students. To accomplish this, librarians should aim to be “teacher designers”—that is, instructors who find creative ways to relay necessary information, and to incorporate student-instructor and student-student interaction. Liles emphasized that “less is more.” Students will not retain vast amounts of information packed into a whirlwind introduction to a litany of sources within the traditional 50-minute class period. Librarians should prioritize and work with faculty to assist them in understanding the importance of not overloading a presentation. Additionally, librarians should strive to use multiple teaching techniques. This will appeal to a variety of learning styles, and keep students engaged. For example, librarians can lecture for a short time and then ask students to reflect on a question and interact with their peers to devise a response. They can also have students practice new skills through creative classroom activities or employ peer instruction, which is a research- proven technique for effective student learning. Liles pointed out that librarians should want students to have an “educative” learning experience—meaning that students will want to return and learn more.
Aside from the program content, Liles’ humorous and enthusiastic speaking style inspired the audience, and provided an example of the type of instruction that librarians should strive to provide. Liles’ PowerPoint slides, and other materials, may be accessed on the ACRL Web site at www.ala.org/ala/acrlbucket/is/conferencesacrl/annualconference.cfm.Tiffany R. Walsh, State University of New York-Buffalo, trwalsh2@buffalo.edu
Reading pictures
What’s black and white and read all over? A panel consisting of three scholars and one artist answered that question at “Reading Pictures: The Language of Wordless Books.” This engrossing and thought-provoking program was cosponsored by Literatures in English (LES) and Arts. Juliet Kerico (chair of the ACRL Planning Committee) moderated.
Perry Willett (University of Michigan) began the program with “My Obsession: ‘Woodcut Novels’ and the Lessons I’ve Learned.” Willett came across a copy of Lynd Ward’s 1929 engraved novel, God’s Man, in a used bookstore. With the help of book dealers he found many other books and devotees. Approximately a dozen artist/authors, mainly European, were working in this medium after World War I, and they met with a good deal of commercial success. Frans Masereel, for example, sold thousands of copies of his 1930 work, My Book of Hours. Yet Willett was frustrated in his attempts to learn more about the genre. Either libraries did not have collections of woodcut novels or they were not discoverable. Willett left the audience with three lessons to ponder: 1) not everything that is worth studying, has been; 2) libraries can actually hinder research if they don’t collect or catalog well; and 3) culture moves on.
David A. Beronä (Lamson Library, Plymouth State University) followed with “The Language of Pictures: Wordless Books—A Review.” Like Willett, Beronä’s introduction to wordless books was through the American artist Lynd Ward. Ward’s themes included the Great Depression, politics, and labor issues, among others. Beronä, whose work Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels was published by Abrams last June, presented samples of work from two dozen artists. Some of the notable artists from the first half of the 20th century were Otto Nückel, Helena Bochoáková-Dittrichová, and Si Lewen, author of Parade (1950), which was praised by Albert Einstein for its powerful anti-war message. There has been a resurgence of wordless novels since the 1990s, and Beronä also displayed work by Peter Kuper, Shaun Tan, Sara Varon and others, among them Eric Drooker, the next panelist up.
Eric Drooker is a New York City artist and author of, to use his phrase, “novels in pictures.” Drooker briefly spoke of his introduction to Frans Masereel’s art by way of his grandfather. He then let his own work do the “talking” by presenting a chapter of Flood (Thunder Mouth, 1992) in a slide show accompanied by music and sound effects. Flood is the story of an artist’s fantasy that begins on the Coney Island boardwalk and ends on Noah’s Ark. In between are scenes of corporate globalization, fascism, police brutality, and alcoholism. Drooker’s black-and-white drawings are reminiscent of the Expressionist movement and frequently look as though they might have been done using woodcuts. The experience of viewing the panels on a screen is not equivalent to reading the book. Aside from the soundtrack, Drooker showed the chapter panel-by-panel, so the relationship of the panels to one another on the page was lost. In response to a question from the audience, Drooker explained that he added the soundtrack to compensate for the lack of intimacy between a book and its reader.
Charles Hatfield (California State University-Northridge), the final speaker of the program, spoke about using wordless books in the classroom. Hatfield is the author of Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature (University Press of Mississippi, 2005). According to Hatfield, wordless books constitute an international language in the same way that silent movies did. He spoke extensively about his pedagogy in teaching comics. Referencing James Paul Gee’s concept of an “identity kit,” Hatfield contended that we all know how to read graphic literature from the skills we learned in “reading” our first children’s books, but we need to be reminded of that fact. He proves this to his students by using “Champion,” a six-page story by the French artist Zou. He shared the story with the audience in his presentation, “Reading Pictures.” The only words in “Champion” are brand logos: Chanel No. 5, Champion sportswear, Marlboro cigarettes, Holiday Inn, etc. Hatfield involves his students by making them coauthors of Zou’s work: they interpret, narrate, and finally analyze the images, and, through so doing, they come to recognize that they understand the language of graphic storytelling. Hatfield concluded by cautioning that graphic literature has its own language of theory and analysis and should not have existing methods of literary criticism imposed upon it.
Questions from the audience stimulated much discussion about the 1920s and 1930s, when the woodcut novel arose; the repeated use of certain themes; and why woodcut art remains popular, even though technology has made it anachronistic.—Liorah Golomb, Wichita State University, liorah.golomb@wichita.edu
Developing cultural competency guidelines in academic libraries
The Racial and Ethnic Diversity Committee’s program “Developing Cultural Competency Guidelines in Academic Libraries: Meaning, Purpose and Direction” included two presentations and group discussion. The presentations and group discussion explored definitions of cultural competency, reasons for developing guidelines, and possible assessment criteria and methodology.
The program began with an overview of the Racial and Ethnic Diversity Committee’s purpose and goals for creating guidelines. The charge to the Racial and Ethnic Diversity Committee includes initiating action related to the promotion of “services for members of racial and ethnic groups” and the “recruitment, advancement, and retention of underrepresented groups to academic librarianship.” If libraries are to continue to be indispensable organizations in their campus communities, they must reflect their communities and be able to provide quality services to their increasingly diverse constituencies. Therefore, it is imperative that they attract and retain new and diverse talent. In order to do so, libraries must create an inclusive and respectful work environment that necessitates supporting the development of cultural competencies in library staff.
These guidelines could be used by libraries to foster internal development and to help articulate the library’s role in higher education in incorporating cultural competencies into learning and scholarship. These guidelines could provide a framework to support libraries in engaging the complexities of providing services to diverse populations and recruiting and maintaining a diverse library workforce. The guidelines could also serve as a starting point from which libraries could develop local approaches and goals in the context of their institution’s unique mission and situation.
Speakers Paul M. Smith (Pennsylvania State University-Abington) and Sandra Ríos Balderrama (principal of Rios Balderrama Consulting) presented insightful information related to both individual and organizational cultural competency. The following is a summary of some of the points they made.
Cultural competency is a developmental process that happens over time. It can be conceptualized as a continuum. Organizations and individuals are at different places along the continuum in regards to different aspects of cultural competency. The question “Is cultural competency just another word for diversity?” has been raised. There is a need to go beyond just touching the surface of issues of diversity in order to address social justice issues. The question “Can libraries be successful in serving diverse communities without developing both individual and organizational cultural competency?” was also raised.
On an individual level, cultural framework shapes the way we behave and interpret other’s behavior. We each look at the world from our own cultural perspective, through multiple lenses. Colorblind theory wants to emphasize commonalities, when it is in the differences that we learn. Vulnerability is critical to authentic inquiry.
On an organizational level, there is a need to make room for multiple perspectives and to assess the organization to identify and remove barriers to the voicing of multiple perspectives. Organizations need to recognize when there is a disconnect between espoused and actual values, i.e., the gap between what we say and what we do. Models of inclusion could be looked at in order to align values with policies and practices. Diversity initiatives take place without addressing methods for supporting the development of skills for intercultural interaction. There is a distinction to be made between our perception that we are being welcoming and inclusive versus do people feel welcomed and included.
During the next portion of the program, attendees broke up into small groups and discussed the following questions:
• How do you define cultural competency?
• Do you see a need for cultural competency guidelines for academic libraries? Why or why not?
• In what areas do you think guidelines could be of assistance to libraries?
• What do you see as indicators of an organization’s cultural competence?
• What do you see as the library’s role(s) in higher education in incorporating cultural competencies into learning and scholarship?
After the small group discussions the attendees reconvened as one group to share what was talked about. Some themes and ideas that came out of the discussion included:
• The ability to serve diverse communities is essential, not a “would be nice.”
• Infrastructure and support from leadership is needed to increase awareness.
• Cultural competency guidelines should address competency at an individual and organizational level.
• A case needs to be made for why cultural competency matters.
The Racial and Ethnic Diversity Committee will be using the input received during this program to help inform the development of cultural competency guidelines for academic libraries.—Michele Saunders, University of Arizona, saundersm@u.library.arizona.edu
Action!
The Rare Books and Manuscript Section (RBMS) presented “Action! Setting Preservation Priorities and Ensuring Access to Your Moving Image Collections,” cosponsored by Arts Section and the Preservation and Reformatting Section of ALA’s Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS). The presentation aimed to highlight the necessary steps to preserving audiovisual collections in three perspectives.
Snowden Becker (cofounder of The Center for Home Movies) discussed the basic steps of identifying, assessing, and preserving audiovisual materials. She offered a numeric order to follow, but prefaced the order by stating that this process can happen organically, and not to consider the numeric order gospel. These steps were outlined: counting, identifying, assessing, describing, quantifying, prioritizing, preserving, and publicizing. She emphasized the importance of counting first, as it creates a new semantic reality to the collection, as well as makes grant writing easier, since numbers are more compelling than expressions of “the sky is falling.” She also advocated a pilot of the project, stating that it saves money and will show how wrong things can go, or “how much you don’t know about your collection.” To close, she promoted publicizing what you do, stating that the more we do it, the easier it is for people who follow us.
Hannah Frost (Stanford University) presented “Reformatting Moving Images: Opportunities, Compromises and Decision-making in Today’s Media Landscape.” YouTube presents a challenge to the list of new resources; although the argument can be made that it is a form of preservation, YouTube changes the expectation of the user, who in turn assumes that everything can be online. Analog tape or video are really a thing of the past. Frost advocates turning to digital technology. The audio community has a widely held consensus on the specs for reformatting: 24 bit, 96 kilohertz (at a minimum), and uncompressed PCM data in a broadcasting format. Unfortunately, video is not so straight forward. Frost gave examples of her experiences in reformatting, providing examples of dirty film, after digitization, as well as flaws in analog formats that cannot be helped, and are thus transferred to the digital copy.
Mike Pogorzelski (director, Academy Film Archive, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) presented “Essential Film: A How-To Guide to Photochemical Preservation in 20 Minutes or Less.” He offered a basic definition of terms to help define the different elements involved (original camera negative, fine grain master positive, duplicate negative, answer print, check print, preservation element, to name a few).
Pogorzelski then walked through the process of producing a preservation element, access to the film, and finally (if the budget allows) a production element for subsequent copies. Cost is a relative variable, depending on the project.
Presentation materials and handouts used during the program will soon be made available on the RBMS Web site at www.rbms.info/.—Serena Vaquilar, Wayne State University, ILS Program, serena.vaquilar@gmail.com
One part inspiration
The Science and Technology Section (STS) program “One Part Inspiration: Creative Trends in Science Learning” brought together speakers who are using visual and interactive techniques to improve the teaching and understanding of scientific and library concepts.
The first speaker was Felice Frankel (senior research fellow at Harvard University). She is a photographer who uses images to visually communicate scientific concepts. Her photos have been in hundreds of journal articles and covers.
She explained that by using images, she hopes to create an accessible “language” that can counteract science illiteracy. Images get people to look, and from that they may ask questions. Her presentation was full of wonderful photographs and explanations of how she created them to express the information that the scientists where trying to convey.
Frankel talked about how images can help communicate an essential piece of research and the aesthetics of an image can help clarify ideas, but the integrity of the science must be maintained. Images may be digitally altered, but whenever an image is altered it should be indicated in the caption. However, in order to edit out what is not necessary, you must understand the science behind it.
Not only can images be edited to remove things, but Frankel also talked about including the “other.” There are times when including more of the image can show the relationship of data to one another. Having a comparison available to the viewer allows a better understanding of the scientific concept.
She discussed her book On the Surface of Things: Images of the Extraordinary in Science in which she presents her photographs along side explanations by the chemist George Whitesides. The photographs draw viewers in and the text provides an explanation of scientific topics at an accessible level.
As part of the Envisioning Science Program at Harvard, Frankel began the Image and Meaning workshops (www.imageandmeaning.org/), which bring together scientists, graphic artists, engineers, librarians, and teachers to “develop and share improved methods of communicating scientific concepts and technical information through images and visual representations.” She wants researchers to go beyond “cool-looking images” and work towards making the images explain and clarify data. She remarked that visuals get scientists to talk to each other and help demonstrate connections of research in different laboratories.
Frankel also has a National Science Foundation-funded program (www.picturingtolearn.org/), where undergraduate students learn about science by creating visual representations of concepts and then exhibiting their work. By creating these drawings students can clarify their own understanding of scientific concepts and teachers can assess a student’s understanding and then identify where any misconceptions are.
The second part of the program featured two librarians, Valrie Davis and Laurie Taylor, who are part of the University of Florida Libraries BioActive Game Group. They created an interactive game to help alleviate the demands of one-shot instruction sessions that happen over a short period of time with limited instruction space. The developers wanted the game, which teaches basic library research skills, to be short, entertaining, and require minimal maintenance.
The game is an interactive fiction staged in a lab where the student is confronted with a professor who has passed out because of some biological substance that she accidentally released. Players have to figure out what ingredients go into the antidote, using library resources such as the catalog, course reserves, and article databases. And they need to do it quickly because the Gators have a big football game coming up. Davis and Taylor described how the developer group had to focus the game far more narrowly than their original scope, peeling back the number of learning objectives and making the game simpler to produce. They developed the game with no funding, so that impacted their choices of game developer software. The game was deployed to classrooms this fall.—Alison Bobal, Oregon State University, alison.bobal@oregonstate.edu
Meeting Millennials on their ground
The University Libraries Section (ULS) program “R U Communicating? Speaking the Language of Millennials” took an energetic look at the mindset of millennial students with the aim of identifying ways to teach and communicate with them more effectively. The three presenters and two students came from a mix of backgrounds, a circumstance which allowed for a great variety of ideas and perspectives on the topic.
The program began with a presentation by Brad Boeke (Southern Methodist University). Boeke introduced the topic by summarizing the mindset of today’s college-age students and the technologies upon which they depend for entertainment and work. His concise review of what we know about Millennials and how they function was a useful reminder of their habits and preferences.
Maria Dixon (Southern Methodist University), brought a new perspective to the table by focusing on the “stories” our libraries tell. Buildings tell stories as well as people, she explained, and our libraries are telling stories about us every day through their colors and placement of furniture, among other features. In order to build good relationships with our students she directed the audience to take control of those stories and ensure that we are telling our students what we intend to tell them.
Marie Radford (Rutgers University) rounded out the panel by reviewing her own extensive research on virtual reference. Her two-and-a-half-year study supports many of our assumptions about millennial students; for instance, that they are active multitaskers who prefer to figure things out for themselves rather than rely on experts. Radford concluded her presentation by offering advice for working with Millennials, including:
• Build positive interpersonal relationships one person at a time, no matter the medium.
• Provide support for independent learning.
• Don’t force instruction! Try show and tell.
• Market online resources as timesaving.
• Pursue outreach, both face-to-face and online.
• Encourage, mentor, and learn from them.
The program concluded with a question-and-answer session featuring two current students at the University of California-Irvine, Kimberly Roth and Samantha Huynh. The two students were frank and open in sharing their perspectives on library technologies, the effectiveness of library instruction, and many other topics. Perhaps most memorable was their response to a question about whether they thought libraries should be in Second Life, to which they responded: “What’s Second Life?”
Overall, the participants brought a diverse mix of viewpoints to the conversation of how best to serve the new generation of students. The program hosted an audience of approximately 200 people and the presentations appeared to be very well received. The program Web site, including PowerPoint files from the presentations, can be found at r.u.communicating.googlepages.com/.—Kim Leeder, Boise State University, kimleeder@boisestate.edu
Cooperative Strategies for European Libraries
This program highlighted the cooperative efforts among European libraries to enhance access to library resources through collaborative cataloging and preservation standards. The program was planned by the Western European Studies Section (WESS) and cosponsored by the Slavic and East European Studies Section (SEES).
Birte Christensen-Dalsgaard (State and University Library, Aarhus, Denmark) discussed “Future Access to the Cultural Heritage “and the challenges of digital preservation. Her career began in theoretical atomic physics, turning to an interest in libraries and digital preservation. “We establish collections to give future generations access to cultural heritage, but how will they access and use it?” She discussed European projects that address collaborative digital preservation. WePreserve (www.wepreserve.eu) presents the activities of DigitalPreservationEurope (www.digitalpreservationeurope.eu); Cultural, Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval (www.casparpreserves.eu); and Preservation and Long-term Access through NETworked Services (www.planets-project.eu).
Janifer Gatenby (Research Integration and Standards, OCLC, Leiden, The Netherlands), discussed “Library Preservation Challenges: Managing the Collective Collection over Time.” The loss of valuable material from natural disaster, broken links, and buried data present challenges to digital preservation. In response, European libraries have formed “centralized and collective digitalized stores, or assets of libraries,” such as Gallica, EU Digital Library, and OCLC Digital Archive. She stressed the importance of “exposure” of library resources as essential to their survival and preservation.
Fleur Stigter (The European Library and “Users for Usability” coordinator for Europeans/EDLnet) provided an entertaining and informative video on “Enhancing Access to Europe’s Cultural and Intellectual Heritage: Accomplishments and Future Directions of The European Library and Europeana.” She discussed Europeana, a European digital library of archives, audiovisual collections, museums, and libraries that will launch in November 2008 (www.europeana.eu/home.php).
Additional information about this program can be found on the WESS Conference Program Web site at wess.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main_Page.—Yvonne Boyer, Vanderbilt University, yvonne.boyer@vanderbilt.edu
Feminist publishing
This year’s annual conference program of the Women Studies Section (WSS), gave voice to the perspectives of a rich sampling of current feminist and women-centered publishing professionals, experts, and activists. Commemorating the 25th anniversary of the WSS, Jennifer Gilley (WSS chair) stressed that “we cannot overstate publishing’s importance to feminism.”
Cosponsored by ALA’s Social Responsibilities Roundtable’s Feminist Task Force and the committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship, the program highlighted the various ways in which women’s lives are impacted and empowered as consumers, producers, and mediators of published materials, as well as addressed the, sometimes not so easy, imbrication of feminist activism, feminist scholarship, and feminist publishing.
Each panelist told a compelling story of what brought them to feminist publishing, from 1960s experimentation with teaching women’s-centered literature courses to finding community as a young mother.
The panel included Florence Howe, emerita publisher/director, The Feminist Press at CUNY; Kristin Bender, reporter/writer, Women’s eNews and The Oakland Tribune; Tedra Osell, feminist blogger, BitchPhD; Jennifer Nace, assistant librarian/reference and instruction librarian, Pennsylvania State-Worthington Scranton; Kimberly Guinta, acquisitions editor, History, Routledge; and Lisa Pierce, editorial database manager, Greenwood Publishing Group. Through the stories of the panelists, the still marginalized position of feminist writing became apparent. Yet it thrives in those very margins, in blogs as it once did (and still does) in pamphlets and bulletins.
The post-presentation discussion centered on the relationship between and value of electronic and print publishing. Even while more publishing goes electronic (newspapers, archives, working papers, commentary), print is still privileged in terms of academic, as well as monetary, value. The librarians in the room highly valued electronic access to obscure or otherwise inaccessible materials, but voiced concern at the cost of such materials, especially for small institutions. For feminist publishing, and mainstream publishing, these issues will continue to be negotiated.—Shana Higgins, Armacost Library, University of Redlands, shana_higgins@redlands.edu